The probability of surviving a heart attack depends on the speed with which appropriate medical care is provided to the person experiencing the heart attack. To decrease the response time to a patient suffering a heart attack, it has been recognized that those persons who are typically first to arrive at the scene of a medical emergency, including emergency medical technicians (EMTs), firefighters, tile police, and even the public (hereinafter collectively referred to as "first responders") should be provided with portable defibrillators. A first responder equipped with a portable defibrillator will have a greater likelihood of successfully treating the patient than those who arrive later at the scene. A defibrillator designed for first responder use would therefore improve the overall success rate of treating heart attack patients.
Unlike paramedics and other trained medical personnel, however, first responders will typically not have received extensive training on dealing with medical emergencies. Because of the reduced level of expertise in the first responder group, a portable defibrillator provided to the first responders should be as simple and user friendly as possible. Reducing the complexity of the portable defibrillator ensures that even in stressful emergency situations, the first responder would be able to connect the defibrillator to the patient and apply appropriate therapy.
All defibrillators must contain or be connected to an energy source to generate and apply a defibrillation pulse to the patient. To ensure true portability, most portable defibrillators are constructed with a battery pack that is sufficient to operate the portable defibrillator for a period of time. The battery pack may be either rechargeable or non-rechargeable, depending on the user's preference and the environment in which the defibrillator is to be used. Rechargeable battery packs typically power a defibrillator for a shorter period of time than non-rechargeable battery packs, but can be recharged and reused. In contrast, non-rechargeable battery packs allow the defibrillator to operate for a longer period but require replacement when the battery pack is discharged.
A portable defibrillator is unusable as a medical treatment device without the battery pack or with a battery pack that is discharged. It should therefore be very easy for the first responder to remove and replace the battery pack to ensure that the defibrillator is always available for use. In most situations, changing the battery pack will typically occur during normal testing of the defibrillator in a non-emergency setting. Occasionally, however, a first responder may have to change the battery pack at the site of the emergency. For example, a prior user of the defibrillator may have left a discharged battery pack in the device that is not discovered until treatment is to be initiated on a patient. Alternatively, the defibrillator could be in use when the battery pack becomes discharged, requiring the first responder to replace the battery pack before continuing treatment. To speed the changing of battery packs, it would therefore be desirable to make the changing process as simple and intuitive as possible.
Unfortunately, the replacement of many prior art battery packs in portable defibrillators was not very straightforward. For example, the correct orientation to insert the battery pack into the portable defibrillator was often not readily apparent from the shape of the battery pack. Further, the connection scheme to connect the battery pack to the defibrillator often required a precise alignment of conductive pins in the battery pack and sockets in the defibrillator. If the pins were not aligned as the battery pack was being inserted into the defibrillator, the user ran the risk of bending and/or breaking the pins. Moreover, prior art battery packs often did not easily latch into the defibrillator. Without a positive and simple latching mechanism to secure the battery pack to the portable defibrillator, a user had to be careful when installing the battery pack to ensure that it was appropriately attached to the device. All of the above disadvantages of prior art battery combined to make it a difficult operation to replace a battery pack in a portable defibrillator, a task that usually required a user to use both hands when performing tile replacement.
The present invention is directed to overcoming the foregoing and other disadvantages. More specifically, the present invention is directed to an improved battery pack design that may be easily inserted by a first responder into a portable defibrillator.